Hands-on learning key to kids’ interest in sci/tech fields

The results from the 2010 Lemelson-MIT Invention Index are out, and they show …

Last year we reported on the results of the annual Lemelson-MIT Invention Index, which showed US teens were very interested in studying science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields and pursuing careers in these areas. While last year's survey found that 85 percent of teens were at least interested in STEM fields, that number has dropped to 77 percent in this year's survey. Although a large percentage of US teens are still interested in STEM fields, we'll need a few more years before we can tell if the decline represents a longer-term trend.

When asked which career fields contributed the most to society's well-being, teacher, doctors, and scientists were ranked highest (in that order), and accounted for 74 percent of the responses. Somewhat sadly—for someone such as myself—engineers garnered a mere five percent of the responses, a scant three points ahead of politicians and tied with "other."

These results can be interpreted as an indication of many teens not knowing exactly what engineers do. Teachers' and doctors' job roles are easily understandable by high school aged individuals, thanks to a high degree of interaction. Other studies have shown that engineers, on the other hand, perform jobs that are not understood by a large portion of the US, high school-aged or otherwise.

With teachers receiving high marks for their contributions to society, it is no surprise that they play a major role in getting teens excited about STEM fields. More than half of the respondents said that simply having a teacher who knows and is interested in STEM fields would encourage them to pursue further learning. This result dovetails nicely with last year's finding that the simple act of having a mentor greatly increases a teens chances of pursuing a STEM career.

Given the wide variety of teaching philosophies and methods available, being able to narrow down the list of those that promote interest in STEM could be valuable to teachers. The survey found that field trips to places where students can get first-hand experience with those in STEM careers were the best way to encourage interest in STEM fields.

Next on the list was access to places outside the classroom that provide hands-on activities and allow experiments to be carried out. This interest in hand-on learning was also seen when students were asked what type of classroom activity was the most engaging. Two-thirds of teens chose hands-on projects, either individual or group, as their favorite classroom activity. Looking back on my grade school time, I can clearly remember building paper bridges, but can't remember the countless days of being lectured to.

Although this survey has only been going for a few years, a few trends seem to be obvious. Once again, the survey indicates that teens (12-17) are interested in the possibility of pursuing STEM careers. Role models continue to be a powerful influence—in this case, the results highlighted teachers who are both knowledgeable and interested in STEM fields. The survey also found that non-traditional learning methods received the most positive feedback. Hands-on tinkering either in or out of the classroom, as well as traveling to places where STEM knowledge is put to use, were both memorable and had a positive influence on perceptions of the fields.

Yes, the key here is to reach the learner with an opportunity that speaks to the way they learn and engage. If we want learners to see the excitement that STEM careers offer, then we need to present the learning in an exciting and engaging manner. Giving the student a book or website and saying, “Here – read this,” doesn’t cut it today. Arguably, showing them just a video of someone saying, “Hi, I’m in a STEM career and it’s cool” doesn’t hack it either. We have to look at making STEM education fresh, new, immersive. It’s hard for teachers who may never have been in a STEM career to be the subject matter expert, but the teacher can be the professional learner and light the way for the student. We need to look at what we have learned from games and learning to see how we can capture the learner’s attention. My fear has always been seeing the same tired traditional methods dropped into the laps of the students year after year. And it’s the students’ fear too. In 2008, a research study done by “Project Tomorrow” asked students about STEM careers. Only 19% showed an interest, but an additional 33% said they might be interested if they only knew more about them. The students are interested. I’ve seen what happens when you get the learner a chance to try out different STEM careers, Letting them live the experience and making the experience their own. But, we have to be willing to think first about how digital natives learn. We need to be open to using the channels they engage with. Then, teach them what we know they need. But we need to let that learning experience be open and creative. Not simply jumping through hoops to prep for some standardized test. The learner is the customer of education and we need to listen to them else we fail.

I don't know why this is the slightest bit surprising. I think being raised in montessori handicapped me because I was raised with the illusion that education was about learning and discovery rather than memorizing shit for a test.

And none of the idiotic Federal education reforms will make a difference because the higher level of government is involved the less responsive it is to individual needs. There will be more standardization in order to have accountability, the buzzword of centralization proponents. But, people are kidding themselves if they think this problem doesn't extend beyond primary and secondary school.

Even as an undergrad I had a love/hate relationship with school. I was 23 when I started so the excitement of drinking and getting laid was no longer a motivator. And taking that out of the picture, college becomes a much more miserable experience.

The material was always taught from an application rather than a discovery approach. I liked the topics we covered, but I hated the feeling that I was learning everything in a box and could never follow my curiosity. I hated that whenever we ran across an interesting question that I felt like we should make a big deal out of it was addressed in passing.

Labs were always stupid. You knew what answer you were supposed to get before you even began. Can you blame people then for fudging the numbers for a better grade? I didn't, but looking back on it, I was an idiot not to, because I didn't understand how education works - it rewards consistency, not achievement.

Quite honestly, if I had to base whether to go into research science on my educational experience I would have been an art major.

Obvious article states obvious information. This has been known for years, hence why NASA has the SEMAA program that I once helped host at one of my former work places. Reading about something in books and experiencing it make a whole world of difference, its why I had more fun watching mister wizard then sitting in class, actual hands on experiences, even if observed are infinitely more valuable.

This isn't the first study to show this, and it probably won't be the last, all the constant surveys mean nothing if the actual knowledge isn't being adopted and applied, but old fashioned rote-memorization is like a cancer that can't be removed from our educational system.

Originally posted by DeathByKaraoke:I don't know why this is the slightest bit surprising. I think being raised in montessori handicapped me because I was raised with the illusion that education was about learning and discovery rather than memorizing shit for a test.

And none of the idiotic Federal education reforms will make a difference because the higher level of government is involved the less responsive it is to individual needs. There will be more standardization in order to have accountability, the buzzword of centralization proponents. But, people are kidding themselves if they think this problem doesn't extend beyond primary and secondary school.

Even as an undergrad I had a love/hate relationship with school. I was 23 when I started so the excitement of drinking and getting laid was no longer a motivator. And taking that out of the picture, college becomes a much more miserable experience.

The material was always taught from an application rather than a discovery approach. I liked the topics we covered, but I hated the feeling that I was learning everything in a box and could never follow my curiosity. I hated that whenever we ran across an interesting question that I felt like we should make a big deal out of it was addressed in passing.

Labs were always stupid. You knew what answer you were supposed to get before you even began. Can you blame people then for fudging the numbers for a better grade? I didn't, but looking back on it, I was an idiot not to, because I didn't understand how education works - it rewards consistency, not achievement.

Quite honestly, if I had to base whether to go into research science on my educational experience I would have been an art major.

I would largely agree with what you said but this kind of curiosity is mostly dealt with at the Graduate and perhaps Undergraduate levels. The problem is strictly with engaging the students, not necessarily tailoring the educational experience to serve their fascinations. This is because the main role of primary schools is to lay out a foundation of knowledge that will make you more intelligent as a whole. Not everything you study in school can be made interesting for everyone, but I have found that even if you utterly detest the subject….say history… learning is still possible if you avoid the horribly boring lecture/note taking and skip to directly why history is important. Projects, for example, are a great way to allow students to find out what they are most interested in (inside the framework of the project outline) and can be guided in their learning through their instructor. Perhaps the greatest satisfaction I have ever received from the educational experience is figuring out stuff all on my own. This is how I remember those “useless facts” because I learned them first hand through taking control of my education.

I can't believe it took researchers to find out that stripping schools of an actual science curriculum would correlate with a drop in science graduates. It's bad enough that labs are already stripped of most of their dangerous chemicals and apparatuses; hint, the periodic table, and the world, is full of dangerous stuff. But who needs science when you are raising the next generation of call center workers and retail product champions!

Let's not forget the one of the ultimate goals of education; to allow for an individual to make a constructive contribution to society and to be able to support him/herself. You want more kids to take science as a career path? Make sure they have a job at the end of the university experience. I hold a bachelors degree in Physics and a minor in Math. I graduated from college in 2007 and, so far, have been utterly unable to find a job in the field in which I am trained. The last job I had was as a tech support analyst for a dollar store chain. In a call center. I noticed one of the previous posters mentioned that educators of today are more interested in creating a generation of call center workers. It would appear that one of the best ways of becoming such is by taking an education in one of the sciences. And, by the way, in case you might be tempted to ascribe my own lack of success to the fact that I only hold a bachelors and did not go for a masters or PhD, or that my academic record was less than stellar, I know of at least one Physics PhD holder working as an Asst Manager of a convenience store; and one of the highest academic achievers in my year at university, an individual with a 4.0 GPA in Physics, just recently quit from her job at Petsmart.

These results can be interpreted as an indication of many teens not knowing exactly what engineers do.

That's for sure. I'm an MIT-trained chemical engineer and I interview students applying to MIT. It is evident from talking to these students that they don't know what engineers do. Indeed, when I ask them what they want to study, it's typically answers like physics, chemistry, or computer science -- all stuff they have firsthand exposure to in high school. Thermodynamics and fluid mechanics, not so much.

Other studies have shown that engineers, on the other hand, perform jobs that are not understood by a large portion of the US, high school-aged or otherwise.

I'll get right on the task of teaching the general public about what engineers do... right after I spend a few decades teaching my manager what he needs to know (and artificially augmenting his brain so he has sufficient mental faculties to actually process the knowledge) so he can have a clue about what I do.

I.e., the situation is hopeless. You can't truly understand or appreciate what a top-notch engineer does unless you are a top-notch engineer. To the masses top-notch engineering results in "stuff" and they may appreciate the stuff but their impression of how the stuff got made is "it's not that hard to do, you just have to be sufficiently geeky to waste a chunk of your life doing it".

But I guess you can give students a taste of what it's like to be a "student class engineer" and hope that's enough for them to want to take it to the next level.

quote:

interest in hand-on learning

Just one hand? What exactly are they teaching these kids? I'll just pretend you're referring to working with high voltage (one hand to work, the other kept in a pocket so it doesn't accidentally become part of a circuit). (Hmm, high voltage experiments in grade school actually sounds like a good way to use evolution to increase student intelligence over the course of a few generations -- or at least their innate fear of electricity.)

quote:

DeathByKaraokeYou knew what answer you were supposed to get before you even began. Can you blame people then for fudging the numbers for a better grade? I didn't, but looking back on it, I was an idiot not to, because I didn't understand how education works - it rewards consistency, not achievement.

There was a saying around the eng faculty where I got my BASc + MASc: half of all engineers end up as programmers. The unspoken part that just dawned on me: i.e. pay attention in your programming classes, even those of you not in Comp Eng :-)

If you want a job when you graduate, study a course that will get you a job (hint: engineering/CS/MBA/others). I was QUITE interested in physics, etc, but it was also well known that there were NO physics jobs. Even at a university that was famous for its co-op program(s), 1st year physics students were happy to get a job as a janitor at a "physics" place for minimum wage or no pay, just so it could count towards the job requirements part of their degree. EE/Comp Eng/Mech Eng/Systems Design students, on the other hand, usually found co-op jobs with only a few outliers not getting a job, even during the early 90s recession.

I don't mean to disrespect physics grads - I believe that your education would have been VERY tough for me (loved math in high school, not so much at the university level). But, there's a difference between getting the exact education you want and getting your dream job and being practical about it, getting an education you enjoy and get a decent job from. My ideal job would probably be rally car driver or professional athlete (hockey, baseball). Alas, I realized early on, those were not to be, and that I really liked computers too.

IMHO, if you're independently wealthy (or your parents are), study whatever you want, do whatever you want. If you need a job after you graduate, give yourself a good chance of getting one.

Originally posted by vw_fan17:If you want a job when you graduate, study a course that will get you a job (hint: engineering/CS/MBA/others). I was QUITE interested in physics, etc, but it was also well known that there were NO physics jobs. Even at a university that was famous for its co-op program(s), 1st year physics students were happy to get a job as a janitor at a "physics" place for minimum wage or no pay, just so it could count towards the job requirements part of their degree. EE/Comp Eng/Mech Eng/Systems Design students, on the other hand, usually found co-op jobs with only a few outliers not getting a job, even during the early 90s recession.

In retrospect that may have been the case, although when your parents tell you to do what you love and you will be successful and the guidance counselors in high school are egging you on and university physics advisers have no interest in mentioning that, oh, by the way, good luck finding a job when you graduate, the odds appear to be stacked against you. I didn't realize the truth until my 3rd year of university and by that time I had $25k or more in educational loans invested in Physics. It just seems a little disingenuous to be talking about how to stuff more kids into the apparent drainpipe of a career path that science appears to be when there is so little for them when they graduate with a degree. There is a fundamental disconnect between the recognition that science and technology are the basis of a country being competitive in the global marketplace today and the (at the moment broken) social contract offered to kids that says something like, "sure we need high tech people and if you choose to be one then you can look forward to 4 years (8 or 9 for a PhD) of mind-bendingly difficult coursework that will rob you of all your free time, and then, when you graduate, a tiny chance of finding a good job. If you fail said job hire dice roll, you will work at McDonald's for a pittance while trying to pay off your crushing educational debt burden which will keep you a pauper for the rest of your life." Who's interested?

I just want to say to all the Physics and Math people if you didn't think getting a job in your field was going to be hard you were fooling yourself. Both of those fields are more abstract then applied, which means you would be competing in the much smaller research arena for jobs. As a backup I would of looked at programming/computer science and got some work experience in those during school. Not only would those help tremendously if you got into research, but you would have a software engineering job as backup plan.

Originally posted by PhasedPhantasy:There is a fundamental disconnect between the recognition that science and technology are the basis of a country being competitive in the global marketplace today and the (at the moment broken) social contract offered to kids that says something like, "sure we need high tech people and if you choose to be one then you can look forward to 4 years (8 or 9 for a PhD) of mind-bendingly difficult coursework that will rob you of all your free time, and then, when you graduate, a tiny chance of finding a good job. If you fail said job hire dice roll, you will work at McDonald's for a pittance while trying to pay off your crushing educational debt burden which will keep you a pauper for the rest of your life." Who's interested?

Well that's because you are in S/M part of STEM, if you did the same thing in engineering you would of had a much greater chance of success in the job market. That is not to disrespect physics, the smartest engineering students I knew double majored in physics. I am just not going to sugarcoat things for my kids, I will tell them that to get practical value out of college go pre-law, pre-med, engineering, or computer science, if you like anything else add it as minor or another major.

Well that's because you are in S/M part of STEM, if you did the same thing in engineering you would of had a much greater chance of success in the job market. That is not to disrespect physics, the smartest engineering students I knew double majored in physics. I am just not going to sugarcoat things for my kids, I will tell them that to get practical value out of college go pre-law, pre-med, engineering, or computer science, if you like anything else add it as minor or another major.

Who doesn't want to be in the S&M part!

I think PhasedPhantasy was more lamenting on the situation. Academia is now an employee machine, but it doesn't have to be and really shouldn't be (in my and a lot of people's minds, anyway). You're definitely right on how it is, I thought about a science field but figured that since I was good at finance and that it's an easy way to make money, I'd go down a comp sci/commerce path. Materialistic and sad, plus I regret it, but there's no way I'd have some of the benefits it bought me today without it.

But we spend so long teaching kids about science, we get them so excited in it, we show the possibilities of what humanity can reach all throughout childhood. And there's a lot to gain if only governments would throw the money into the research, money that'll probably pay big dividends in the long run, but once kids finish school with all these dreams and ideals, we bitchslap them back to earth and tell them to look at the fields that will earn them more. That would be the disconnect, there's not even the jobs to aim for, even if you're utterly brilliant

Ok, one more post and I'm done I am not talking here particularly about Physics or my own experiences; I simply use these items as examples in the broader argument. The difficulty I'm trying to highlight is this. Society has an abstract need for science and technology. Unfortunately, the concrete pathways to gain the talent to compete in these fields are, for the most part, a crap shoot for those who choose to walk them. Some Science fields are better than others; Chemistry for example has a pretty good track record for employment. For the most part, however, you are risking far more exposure to the possibility of wasting your life in a dead end job unrelated to your field of interest in a science field than, say, a Business major. This is implicitly recognized in the slow death of science related university departments from a lack of candidates and the burgeoning masses overflowing the halls of the Economics or Business colleges. As robrob says, academia is now in the business of cranking out workers whose intellectual shape will fit as a cog in a corporation's machine. To do so requires a tangible and verifiable skill set; the idea seems to be that abstract intellectual flexibility and ingenuity outside of a concrete skill set are superfluous and even potentially dangerous to corporate culture.

God i'm in high school right now and my school is one of the best in the country for Robotics programs and has a lot of business and technology courses. They just need to make it more active and hands on, I want to be doing something, not sitting there listening to some teacher talk or telling us to read the whole time.

Im Currently in a program run by Cisco through our school and im loving it. I just wish i could take more classes like it.

PhasedPhantasy: When I read your account of college I had deja vu. I went to Penn State as an undergrad for Engineering Science and Mechanics. Its an honors degree designed to get the student ready for graduate level engineering programs. Why engineering? Well mainly because I didn't know what else I wanted to do and my parents thought engineering was a good career. By my third year I knew I was in the wrong program but I couldn't do anything about it. So I graduated and couldn't find a job. I was lucky though in that I found a grad school that offered a MS degree in IT got in. I have been doing IT ever since and love it. My point is, most students don't really know what they want to do when they start college. I am curious, What did you envision yourself doing after graduation? What is your dream job? Physics is a fine major, but why Physics? As for the Ph.D. people you mentioned, there is no reason to get a Ph.D. unless you plan to do research or teach at the university level. Otherwise its a waste.

I think the biggest problem with schools is that we don't tell our kids to pick a career. When try to get them hooked on a subject. Well, physics is all fine and dandy. But if its not applied to anything in particular, its not going to be much of a career path.

sidewinder12s: If you are looking for a good school for IT or robotics, may I humbly suggest looking at the Rochester Institute of Technology? (to be fair I do work there) While the school is fairly expensive, it does have a VERY good co-op program with people like Cisco and Citrix. At the very least, it will give you an idea of what a practical education based institution looks like. Our grads come out ready to hit the job running. It is very different from the education I got at Penn State which was largely theoretical. Also, does your high school offer courses in electronics where you actually build circuits? You should get your parents to push for it if they don't.

TechGeek: I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life going into my senior year in high school. I originally had intended to become an architect until I took a drafting class and found that I couldn't draw worth beans. Plus, it was boring. I also took a Physics class that year which I enjoyed immensely and the idea took off from there. I guess my overriding goal at that time was to be flexible; to get a qualification that spoke of the ability to reason, analyze and adapt, rather than be tied to a particular profession or an immovable set of trained abilities. With such credentials, I reasoned, I couldn't lose. For who wouldn't want to employ an individual who could do virtually anything? Imbued with the optimism of youth, I was under the impression that a degree in Physics would do that. Unfortunately, it turned out that such attributes were a little too abstract for recruiters to get their noodle around. Besides, I really enjoyed the subject and had nothing better in mind; so why not?My plans to elevate myself from my current unemployability involve getting into a PhD program in Philosophy, to which I've already applied and am awaiting a response. If that doesn't pan out then you will be able to see me at your local MickeyD's, where I will be glad to tell you about the 2 for $1 special on apple pies...

It seems like there's a wide range of outcomes for physics bachelor's who seek a job right after graduation. It's possible that if you go to a big name school your employment prospects as a "generalist" are better than if you pass from a less prestigious program.

One strategy for my physics peers was to get a master's in an "applied" field after finishing their physics bachelor's, and they had no problem getting jobs afterward.

The survey found that field trips to places where students can get first-hand experience with those in STEM careers were the best way to encourage interest in STEM fields.

And yet, when school budgets are tight, field trips are one of the first things cut from programs (in addition to AP classes and anything for "gifted" students. And yes, i've seen it in our local school district.

It is somewhat heartening to know that there's a "high-tech" career path for people who can't hack it at math or science. The world does need computer janitors. What it doesn't need are computer janitors who think they have useful opinions outside of computer janitoring.

Matt Ford / Matt is a contributing writer at Ars Technica, focusing on physics, astronomy, chemistry, mathematics, and engineering. When he's not writing, he works on realtime models of large-scale engineering systems.